Bandwidth control method, cell receiving apparatus, and traffic control system

A cell receiving apparatus in a communication network supporting communication by transmission of cells on a group of connections, the group having an assigned group bandwidth, the connections in the group having respective minimum bandwidths providable within the assigned group bandwidth and respective current bandwidths that the connections are currently allowed to use, the cell receiving apparatus including:

• an explicit rate calculation unit that receives information indicating the current bandwidths of the connections, calculates a total current bandwidth by adding up the current bandwidths of the connections in the group, subtracts the total current bandwidth from the assigned group bandwidth to obtain a difference, adds the difference to each connection's current bandwidth to obtain an explicit rate for each connection in the group, determines which connections in the group are currently active, calculates a sum of minimum bandwidths of active connections in the group, uses said sum to calculate a minimum explicit rate for each connection in the group, and alters the explicit rate to the minimum explicit rate under certain conditions;
• wherein the explicit rate of each connection in the group is used to control the current bandwidth of the connection.

A cell receiving apparatus in a communication network supporting communication by transmission of cells on a group of connections, the group having an assigned group bandwidth, the connections in the group having respective minimum bandwidths providable within the assigned group bandwidth and respective current bandwidths that the connections are currently allowed to use, the cell receiving apparatus including:

• an explicit rate calculation unit that receives the current bandwidths of the connections, calculates a total current bandwidth by adding up the current bandwidths of the connections in the group, subtracts the total current bandwidth from the assigned group bandwidth to obtain a difference, adds the difference to each connection's current bandwidth to obtain an explicit rate for each connection in the group, calculates a minimum explicit rate for each connection in the group, and alters the explicit rate to the minimum explicit rate if said difference is negative;
• wherein the explicit rate of each connection in the group is used to control the current bandwidth of the connection.